2016

Francophile readers of this blog will no doubt enjoy JP blog, a new blawg operating under the auspices of Jus Politicum. Those of you, Francophile or otherwise, who are interested in official responses to maladministration will find a great deal of interest in two recent posts by Professor Olivier Beaud on the recent decision of […] Read more

In area of judicial control of non-statutory powers, the “boundaries” of judicial review are “uncertain” (Wade & Forsyth, Administrative Law, 11th ed. (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014), at p. 532. There have been various efforts to shed light on them over the years. Particularly useful illumination can be provided by the underlying purposes and values […] Read more

Here is the final installment of my posts on rights protection in administrative law: you can also read posts one, two and three. My proposed “public law model” would draw on the strengths of administrative law and constitutional law. Abella J. was quite right to set out in Doré to try and draw on the […] Read more

Some contributors to the recent debate about the status of EU nationals in the United Kingdom post-Brexit have proposed that a distinction be drawn between those who were in the UK before the referendum and those who have come more recently. See the Judicial Power Project; and British Future (esp pp. 16-17). The basic idea […] Read more

You will recall that in Slaight Communications, discussed in my previous post, Dickson C.J. endorsed Lamer J.’s neat analytical framework, with its clear distinction between administrative review and constitutional review, but noted that the evolution of administrative review might put the framework under pressure. So it proved. A blow-by-blow account of the development of Canadian […] Read more

In a previous post, I examined how judicial review of administrative action could protect rights in a pre-Charter world. Let us fast forward now to Slaight Communications Inc. v. Davidson, [1989] 1 SCR 1038, the first major treatment by the Supreme Court of Canada of judicial review of administrative action under the Charter. As is […] Read more

I have not mentioned as many books and articles as I would have liked to over the course of the year. Let me try to make up for this by recommending a book to put in the Christmas stocking of the administrative lawyer in your life: Law’s Abnegation by Adrian Vermeule. The blurb says: Ronald […] Read more

A majority of the Supreme Court of Canada took the opportunity presented by Windsor (City) v. Canadian Transit Co., 2016 SCC 54 to raise serious questions about the status and role of Canada’s federal courts. A purely jurisdictional issue arose here for consideration. The company was incorporated under federal law as the owner and operator […] Read more

I am speaking next week at an event on Brexit organised by the Philippe Kirsch Institute in Toronto. In my presentation, which will be based on the lengthy analysis in this post, I will lay out the legal and political faultlines that have been exposed by the litigation over the triggering of Article 50. Four […] Read more

The role that administrative policies can play in the exercise of discretion is a perennial question in administrative law. It has been given a new lease of life in the United Kingdom by the introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998. The interface between the Act and administrative policies was recently considered in Hesham Ali […] Read more